FCC Asks Carmakers, Carriers How Customers Are Tracked
Available geolocation data at the center of domestic violence...
The Federal Communications Commission is asking the largest automakers and wireless carriers how they retain, share, or sell drivers’ location data collected on apps, devices and vehicles. In letters to both automakers and carriers, the FCC said it was trying to protect survivors of domestic violence violence and abuse through the Safe Connections Act.
The federal agency contends the survivors are being stalked by their abusers through connected devices and location technology available in vehicles and smartphones. “No survivor of domestic violence and abuse should have to choose between giving up their car and allowing themselves to be stalked and harmed by those who can access its data and connectivity,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, in a statement. “We must do everything we can to help survivors stay safe. We need to work with auto and wireless industry leaders to find solutions.”
The FCC recently adopted new rules, under the Safe Connections Act, to help survivors receive “separate service lines from accounts that include their abusers, protect the privacy of calls made by survivors to domestic abuse hotlines, and support survivors who suffer from financial hardship,” the agency said. However, it is not known how the agency plans to proceed with information received from the companies.
Letters were send to the CEOs of Verizon VZ 0.00%↑, T-Mobile TMUS 0.00%↑ and AT&T T 0.00%↑. Automakers receiving the letters include Ford F 0.00%↑, General Motors GM 0.00%↑, Tesla TSLA 0.00%↑ and the U.S. divisions of Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Stellantis and Toyota.
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Samsara Sues to Stop Patent Infringement, Halts $300 Million Geotab USPS Deal
Alleging ongoing intellectual property theft, San Francisco-based Samsara IOT 0.00%↑ has filed a lawsuit against Motive Technologies. The fleet management company also contends that Motive conducted false advertising and “other illegal conduct.”
Specifically, the lawsuit, filed in a Delaware federal court, alleges that Motive, a dashcam and GPS provider, basically took Samsara’s product line and business strategy. Samsara also believes that Motive illegally accessed Samsara’s platform to copy marketing materials.
Samsara also alleges that Motive compromised security data for its IoT devices, data platform and features. The company says it has records to show that Motive employees viewed Samsara’s dashboard more than 20,600 times from 2018 to 2022.
Fireworks in $300 Million USPS Telematics Case…
Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims halted Geotab USA’s performance of a $300 million telematics fleet tracking device contract for the U.S. Postal Service, according to published reports. Samsara protested the award last March.
“The agency must re-evaluate Samsara’s proposal, conduct a new best value trade-off determination, and a make a new award decision if necessary, the court’s Friday judgment says,” according to Bloomberg Law.
For its part, Geotab USA is seeking to join the US Postal Service in defense of the procurement. According to Bloomberg Law, Geotab filed an unopposed motion to intervene with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims last week, while Samsara filed its protest under seal.
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HERE Technologies Announces Partnership Expansion With What3words
HERE Technologies and what3words have announced an expansion of their partnership to allow its Location Services application programming interfaces (APIs) customers to use the United Kingdom-based company’s global addressing system.
HERE, which says its customers are already able to activate their what3words license, first partnered with the mapping company in 2020 for location integration in the Jaguar Land Rover and other automotive customers.
At CES this year, what3words said it is seeing growth in emergency services as most U.S. states are using its unique addressing service. People lost sometimes cannot describe where they are, but if they can send the three words location to an emergency operator, they receive life-saving services, the company said.
In other HERE news, the company signed a deal with Targa Telematics to leverage the company’s Platform AIs for Targa’s fleet management offerings. The APIs include HERE’s Routing API and Map Attributes, which will be incorporated into Targa Telematics’ smart mobility and fleet management solutions.
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Other Location News
News tip? Send them to kdennehy@driverlessreport.com. Go to www.locationbusinessnews.com for more news and an archive of stories.
Top News:
😮 Value for Money Questioned in $1.2 Billion Satellite Contract. “Geoscience Australia will have a hard time showing it achieved value for money for a $1.18 billion satellite positioning system, a report from the national audit office says. The government’s geoscientific research agency in 2022 awarded the 19-year contract to Lockheed Martin Australia LMT 0.00%↑ to delivery the Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN).
💰 MapmyIndia Wins $50 Million Hyundai-Kia Contract for India OEM Business. “The deal covers map and connected-car content including real-time and predictive traffic, mobile SDK, online search and call center maps for embedded connected navigation and connected car services.”
💲 Comtech Announces $45 Million Strategic Investment. “Comtech Telecommunications CMT 0.00%↑ has announced a $45 million investment by current shareholders White Hat Capital Partners.”
☹ Bosch Aims To Cut 1,200 Jobs in Software Division by End 2026. “The main reason given for the move, which sees 950 cuts in Germany alone, is the significantly slower-than-expected development of fully automated driving.”
✈ Aviation Sector Seeks Urgent Solutions for GPS Interference. “The aviation industry will press regulators for urgent action to help tackle GPS "spoofing" amid a surge in such activity, which can send commercial airliners off-course, due to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.”
🛰 GMV Receives Galileo System Contract. “GMV, as part of a consortium led by Astroscale UK, has been awarded a contract within the ESA’s CREAM (Collision Risk and Automated Mitigation) initiative to advance in an alternative path for late collision avoidance manuevers through the Galileo Return Link Service.
Maps:
📌 Esri Launches Maps.com, a Content Platform for Creators Demonstrating the Power of Maps. “Maps.com is focused on spotlighting distinctive, powerful maps and those who make them. As a creator-focused platform, Maps.com encourages individuals as well as organizations to submit their maps to be featured on the site.”
😦 Apple Maps Is Better Than Google Maps. “Google has been on a streak of making its products worse. Chrome has come under fire from a variety of electronic privacy-focused organizations for its continual erosion of user data protection, as well as the way it's forced the web to reshape itself at Google's whims. This data collection happens throughout the entire Google ecosystem, including Maps.”
🙂 Overture Maps Foundation: Looking Forward to 2024. Marc Prioleu: “In Q2 2024, we should be shifting into the third phase: Growth. This is the phase where we begin to have an impact in the market. Growth applies to many areas that we will be targeting.”
👍 Metal Support for MapLibre Native iOS. “MapLibre Native traditionally relied only on the industry standard graphics API called OpenGL ES. However, in 2018 Apple AAPL 0.00%↑ announced that it would be phasing out OpenGL ES on all Apple platforms in favor of Metal.”
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Connected and Autonomous Vehicles:
🚘 This Startup Has a Different Take On Driverless Cars. Now It's Launching in the U.S. “German startup Vay has launched its ‘teledriving’ service, where remote drivers drive cars to users who can then rent and drive them off, in Las Vegas. It marks the first time Vay, which has received funding to the tune of $110 million, has launched a commercial teledriving operation in the U.S.”
🙁 GM Is Getting Rid of 'Ultra Cruise' Branding as It Reevaluates Its ADAS Program. “General Motors is getting rid of the “Ultra Cruise” brand and merging the team that was working on it with the team responsible for Super Cruise, as the automaker reconsiders its goals for advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS).”
🤔 Apple Scales Back and Delays Plans for Self-Driving Vehicle. “After initially aiming for a fully autonomous vehicle, the company has scaled back its ambitions and is now focusing on an electric vehicle (EV) with more limited features, including more basic driver-assistance features, Bloomberg reported.”
👌 Openvia Inks V2X Agreement With GMV. “Through NeoRoads, firms will develop solutions for V2X comms tech with focus on 5G-V2X.”
🤨 When Will Waymo Robotaxis Be Allowed on Bay Area Highways and at Airports? Company Seeks Permission. “Waymo is gearing up for a dramatic statewide expansion that would see the company’s fleet of driverless cars spanning much of the Bay Area and a major portion of Los Angeles County—and using freeways to ferry passengers around.”
🚗 Waymo Seeks To Expand Driverless Service to Los Angeles.
🤷♂️ More Human Than Human: Driverless Waymo Cuts Off Another Waymo At Stop Sign. “Even robotaxis seem to find autonomous vehicles annoying, a recent video proves”
Drones:
😕 Former Google CEO Allegedly Developing Suicide Attack Drones For Ukraine War.
🛩 Walmart Expansion with Wing and Zipline Points to Continued Growth in Drone Delivery. “Walmart’s recent announcement that they will expand drone delivery operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas with Wing and Zipline are clear signs that major drone delivery companies and leading retailers are committed to bringing more UAV-based services to more and more customers.”
Financial:
💲 Sateliot Raises $6.6 Million. “Spanish satellite operator startup Sateliot announced yesterday that it has clinched $6.6 million in funding from Banco Santander.
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Location Industry Briefs
Send your news releases to kdennehy@driverlessreport.com. Go to www.locationbusinessnews.com for more news and an archive of stories.
Point One Navigation Announces Polaris Location Services in South Korea
Point One Navigation has announced that their Polaris real-time kinematic (RTK) location network is now available in South Korea. The network is available to deliver centimeter-accurate location services to businesses and application developers, the company said.
The Polaris network supports all major GNSS constellations and has an extremely dense global network of base stations that cover the United States, Europe, New Zealand, S. Korea, and parts of Canada, Australia, the company said. The Polaris network, with FusionEngine software, delivers location services for autonomy and robotics applications.
Contact: Point One Navigation, https://pointonenav.com/polaris.
UK Sovereign Satellite Navigation Overlay Successfully Demonstrated
Viasat $VSAT has demonstrated a United Kingdom satellite-based augmentation system for the first time to show what accurate GPS data can do to maximize safety and efficiency, the company said. The test flight, flown from Cranfield Airport using the National Flying Laboratory Centre's Saab 340B aircraft, showcased a UK-based SBAS that delivers more precise, reliable navigation data.
The UK is no longer part of the EU's European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), following its exit from the European Union. While EGNOS can still be used for non-safety applications in the UK, the trial aims to provide a first step toward a complementary UK SBAS.
Contact: Viasat, www.viasat.com.
U-blox, Nordian Bring PointPerfect to Brazil
Thalwil, Switzerland-based u-blox [UBXN] has partnered with Nordian to bring the PointPerfect GNSS correction service to Brazil. U-blox and Nordian will go after markets like high-precision agriculture, service robots, machinery automation, micro-mobility, lane-accurate navigation and telematics.
Bringing PointPerfect, which delivers centimeter-level accuracy, in Brazil allows u-blox to expand into the potentially lucrative South America market. PointPerfect’s recently announced Localized Distribution feature uses 90 percent less data than typical network RTK services, the company said.
Contact: Nordian, media@nordian.com, www.nordian.com.
Maplink Launches Maplink CO2 API in LATAM and Europe
São Paulo-based Maplink has introduced the Maplink CO2 API to help businesses calculate the carbon emissions of their vehicles on specific routes, while also providing information about fuel consumption, the company said. Maplink CO2 API, launched for the logistics industry in Latin America and Europe, is part of the Maplink Platform. The company believes that there is a need for the solution as CO2 emissions accounted for 8 percent of global emissions in the EU.
Contact: Frederico Hohagen, Maplink, fred@maplink.global.
RoboSense's M Platform Sensors Power Lotus EMEYA
RoboSense has announced that the new Lotus Emeya will be equipped with its M Platform lidar sensors. Lotus also deployed M Platform sensors on the Eletre, the company's first electric-Hyper SUV, unveiled in March 2022, the company said.
The M Platform sensors were developed for advanced driver assistance applications and autonomy, the company said. They feature high-resolution 3D data to detect roadway objects at up to 200 meters in low-light and nighttime lighting conditions, the company said.
Contact: Cheyenne Wilder, for RoboSense, (929) 505-3130, cwilder@codewordagency.com.
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CNH Offers Smart Farming With MyPLM Connect Telematics Solution
CNH CNHI 0.00%↑ brand New Holland has integrated its MyPLM Connect telematics solution into its TT and TT4 tractors. The company said that MyPLM Connect allows farmers to make informed decisions, maximize machine performance and boost productivity.
With the telematics solution, New Holland users can track and manage the performance, work status, speed, fuel usage and precise location of their tractors and other connected equipment, the company said.
Contact: CNH Industrial, info@3blmedia.com, www.cnhindustrial.com.
PeopleToMySpot Provides SMB Marketers With Location Analytics
DOmedia and Placer.ai launched PeopleToMySpot.com, a website designed to help local marketers and business owners understand and impact foot-traffic patterns near brick-and-mortar locations. PeopleToMySpot allows local businesses to access data from Placer's Foot Traffic Widget for any zip-code's foot-traffic patterns and available ad inventory, the company said.
DOmedia created PeopleToMySpot because they believe access to foot-traffic data will increase local marketers' demand for out-of-home (OOH) ads, such as billboards, the company said.
Contact: Sydney Deibert, DOmedia, (614) 214-6799, sydney.deibert@domedia.com, www.peopletomyspot.com; Placer.ai, https://placer.ai.
Geotab GO9 Device Type-Approved by TCA
Geotab has announced that its GO9-LTM telematics device, the GO9-LTMTLS and GO9-LTMTENO, has been type-approved by Transport Certification Australia (TCA) as a Level 2 assurance device under the National Telematics Framework. TCA’s type-approval means that the GO9-LTM telematics device has been independently assessed and meets the performance-based requirements outlined in TCA’s Telematics Device Functional and Technical Specification, the company said.
Geotab plans to be a certified Application Service Provider under the National Telematics Framework during 2024. Subject to approval of the certification, Geotab’s GO9-LTM telematics device may be used for the Telematics Monitoring Application and the Road Infrastructure Management initiatives offered through the National Telematics Framework, the company said.
Contact: Hanna Corrente, Geotab, pr@geotab.com, www.geotab.com/au.
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People
HERE Technologies has named Deon Newman as senior vice president and GM for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region in its Singapore office.
Ericsson ERIC 0.00%↑ made executive appointments: Lars Sandström as its CFO, senior vice president, and head of Group Function Finance; and Yossi Cohen is appointed senior vice president and Head of Market Area North America.
Kevin Coggins has been named deputy associate administrator for Space Communications and Navigation at NASA.
Kristopher Dyche was named technical solutions analyst at Glympse.
Ludovic Privat has been named sales director at Connected Cycle.
Geoff Weathersby has been named COO at Global Cloud Fleet.
Pozyx has named Niki Claeys as business development manager.
Patrick Marvin has been named product manager at Trusted Positioning.
Umovity has named Andy Myers as CFO and Mogens Abel-Bache as CTO.
Bradford Hamme has been named chief engineer, Mark Levinson Automotive at HARMAN International.
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